Lessons Learned
by alittlelights
Summary: A series of one-shots where Parker and Eliot help each other. Chapter 4:  Eliot's in need of a translator, but first he has to agree to Parker's terms.
1. An Afternoon Mess

A/N: This was originally written as part of a gift exchange, but then I got more and more ideas, so every chapter is going to be a separate one-shot where Eliot and Parker either help or teach something to one another, but they will all be in the same overall story if that makes any sense.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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Eliot walked into the kitchen to find Parker cover in what looked like an entire bag of flour with a cookbook shoved up close to her face.

Walking up to her and pulling the book down so he could see her he couldn't help but laugh. "Sheesh Parker what did you do? Decide to dump all the flour on you?"

"I'm baking brownies or at least I was trying to. I just don't understand the manual thing."

Deciding that he would never hear the end of it if Nate knew that he didn't try and help Parker get things cleaned up he decided to the only thing to do to cheer her up was to teach her some baking basics.

Picking up the cookbook he said, "First off this is called a cookbook and it lists all the ingredients and how much of each to add and in what order."

"Well I got some of that, but what about the cup part? Is it a coffee cup, a paper cup, or a chalice-sized cup like one I have in storage because those are all very different sizes?"

"None of the above Parker. This," pulling something out of a drawer, "is a measuring cup and we can use it to measure out the flour, sugar, and other ingredients."

Looking up to meet his eyes Parker smiled and said, "We. You said we, so does that mean you're going to help me bake them?"

"Of course I'll help you Parker. If I left you alone to actually use the oven you'd probably burn Nate's place to the ground."

"Good. I always like it when you teach me things."

Seeing her enthusiasm as he went over how to break the eggs right and how to mix everything together distracted him from the sound of the door opening.

"What in the world happened in here?" Nate's loud voice rang out.

"Well you see Parker was trying to bake, but she made a mess so now I'm helping…"

"What are you talking about? Parker's not even in here Eliot and you better clean all this up."

Muttering to himself, "Crazy girl and her vanishing acts. She so owes me now."

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So I already have the next one ready and have ideas for more, so stay tuned. I know there isn't much to this story, but if there's anything you'd like to see let me know with a review :D


	2. Cuffs

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews they really encourage me to keep writing! I hope this chapter is good and I've been kinda lazy on working on the next ones, but this weekend there should be more. :D  
Disclaimer: I don't anything.

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There was no way this would turn out well. The things he was willing to go through to complete a job Eliot thought as he awkwardly opened the door to the room where Parker was sitting.

"I didn't do it."

"Do what Parker? I ain't even said anything yet."

"Really? It's just you have the 'angry at Parker' face on right now or maybe it's the 'in of need an icepack' look. I can never really tell the difference."

"Sophie should stop teaching you things about grifting, because you take things to a whole new extreme sometimes, but that's not why I'm here."

Holding up his hands that were held together by a pair of handcuffs he could see the confusion setting in on her face.

"Why are you wearing handcuffs? I thought you were supposed to get cuffed tomorrow by the crooked sheriff? Did I miss a meet…"

"Parker," cutting her off before the game of twenty questions continued, "I was practicing and things didn't go quite as planned."

"Why didn't you just pick it?"

"That's why I'm here. I kinda need your helptogetthemoff." Letting the sentence come out as fast as he could didn't make the him feel any better about having to rely on someone else to help him, but if he couldn't get out of the cuffs on his own by this time tomorrow there would be some serious problems.

"Oh oh I know this one! I can actually help," Parker all but shouted at him as she moved closer and grabbed his hands in her smaller ones.

"Great let's get going then. I ain't got all day Parker."

"Okay well first you need… are those scratch marks?"

"Yeah I tried to break them with one of my hammers, but these damn cuffs are strong."

"Ha. Amateur move. I guess you're just going to have to be more like a thief for this con than a hitter."

Sighing as she pointed out what he had on him to use to pick it proved to him that maybe Parker wasn't that bad of a teacher, even if she was the worst student sometimes.


	3. Spin Cycle

Authors Notes: I needed to do laundry this weekend so you write what you know I guess. And finally here's one from more of a Parker POV.  
Disclaimer: Unfortunately nothing here belongs to me.

**Spin Cycle**

Climbing through a window was nothing new to Parker, but trying to do this while carrying a basket of her dirty clothes was a whole different story. She was starting to regret her decision to stop stealing new clothes whenever her stuff was too dirty.

Finding the stairs to the basement she went to start the clothes in the washing machine. She'd even looked up what to do so that everything would get clean.

After getting all the clothes, detergent, and buttons set she moved to go back upstairs and see if there was some cereal to eat while she waited. Before she made it all the way up she heard the sound of keys in the door.

Instead of trying to sneak up on the person, Parker tried a more direct approach.

"Hey Eliot!"

"Parker. What are you doing here? Wait no, did you break into my house?"

"Laundry. Yes. Do you have any cereal? I'm hungry," she responded while already walking towards his kitchen.

Eliot was taking this better than she thought he would. He hadn't even called her crazy yet, but when she saw him out of the corner of her eye his face was all red and he was taking loud breaths.

"You're mad aren't you?"

"No Parker I'm ecstatic."

She started grinning because she caught that he was joking, until she realized what that meant. "I just needed to borrow your washing machine and I figured it would be better if I left it here than tried to take it back to my place."

"Why haven't you tried to do this before? We've been working together for a long time now. What brought on the sudden need to start doing your laundry at _my_ house?"

"Oh I've never done laundry before, but Sohpie told me that I should stop stealing clothes and stuff so I did."

When she finished explaining how she used to get clothes there a loud banging sound that was coming from the basement.

"Parker, you did read how to do laundry first right?"

"Yeah. You put the clothes in, turn on the water, and add soap," she said following Eliot to the door.

Walking down the stairs she could already see a layer bubbles coming out of the machine. "Uh oh."

"Uh oh's right Parker. How much detergent did you add?"

"The whole box. I wanted them to be extra clean. I guess that was a bad idea."

"Ya think? You only need to add up to this line," he explained holding up the cup that sat next to them empty box. "How about the next time you decide to do laundry go to the Laundromat near your place instead of breaking mine."

"Okay, but what do you do with the wet clothes?"

"Come on I'll show you how the dryer works."

**AN: **Thanks to everyone that reviewed and also if there's anything you would want to see in this series let me know :)


	4. Sí se puede

Authors Notes: Tag to "The Gone Fishin' Job" so spoilers for that I guess.  
Disclaimer: I still don't own anything.

**Sí se puede**

It's not often that someone on the team received a thank you in the form of writing, especially when they were in another language. Eliot was by no means a master of language, but over the years of international travel he'd picked up several along the way.

The language he never really spent much time dealing with was Spanish, had it been in Farsi or Russian he wouldn't be where he was now. After the job in Juarez the little girl from the family they'd helped had drawn him a letter and written a short note.

He'd stared at the letter for a while after he'd recovered from his time in the woods with Hardison, but hadn't had any success in translating it past "gracias."

Eliot didn't own a computer and wasn't about to ask Hardison to borrow his, so he went to see the only person he knew that would help him without making a big deal about it.

"Parker, it's me Eliot. I'm opening the door to your creepy storage shed."

"Go away. I'm busy trying to pix my piñata."

When he walked up to the table she was sitting at he could glue and colorful strips of tissue paper. He didn't actually think Parker was going to fix the piñata that he had broken out of annoyance, but he should have known never to jump to conclusions with Parker.

"You have like ten more why do you need that one to have a head?"

"Because they're a family."

"A family? Parker you do realize that they're piñatas not actual animals?"

"Or maybe they are." Seeing her evil planning smile creeping onto her face Eliot decided that it was time to try and changed the subject of the arts and crafts surgery going on.

"Listen, I know you speak Spanish and I need you to tell me what this letter says."

"Nope."

"What do you mean _nope_?"

"You tore the head off Hardison Jr., so no I'm not helping you with anything. Unless…"

"Unless what Parker? It will only take you a few minutes to just read this to me and then I'll leave you to whatever crazy you were up to before I got here."

"If you help me fix my piñata that _you_ tore apart, I'll read you whatever you want."

"Aw come on Parker. I don't do crafts." Running his hand through his hair Eliot let out a sigh and sat down on the seat across from Parker.

Parker handed over the brightly color halves with a big smile. "Make him look pretty again and when I approve I'll tell you what the little girl wrote. It's actually quite sweet."

Sitting in silence for a while as he was working Eliot went back to something Parker had said earlier. "Parker what's this ones name again?"

"Hardison Jr.," she said skipping over to the rest she pointed to them one by one telling him their names until he heard his name called when she picked up a large blue one. "I named them after the team and when I ran out of our names, I used ones for people we helped."

"Hmm I guess if there were any piñata that I would pull there heads off it's fitting that it was Hardison's."

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